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About UsPublic Column Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba
(SELIM Webzine, Feb. 2016 No. 55)
Chang-Jin Kim
I am very curious about ‘him' because ‘he' certainly has the ‘big difference' from others. He is one of the most successful entrepreneur in the world, he has built up his own best area and became a self-made billionaire.
Jack Ma… Founder of Alibaba, the world best e-commerce company
I'd like to introduce you about his growing story and foundation story of Alibaba, and some of his ‘quotations' in which his values are embedded.
(quoted from the book, '12 lectures on life from Alibaba Jack Ma', Maeil Business, written by Jiangyen, translated by SH Kim)
Jack Ma was born in Hangzhou, China in 1964 and spent his childhood life there. He had to study one more year to enter high school, and two more years to enter University as he was not good at mathematics. But he was good at English and able to enter the faculty of Foreign Languages in Hangzhou Teacher's Institute which and majored in English.
What is important is the fact that we can learn his values from the story of never giving up but keeping challenging until the goal is achieved throughout several failures.
He himself also says that the ‘attitude never giving up' is the factor what made him so.
“I do not know what is the definition of a success, but I do know what is the one of the failure. I define failure as giving up.”
He was passionate and devoted himself to study his favorite subject, English at University, and he graduated school in outstanding grade. Based on this he became a lecture in the area where he resided,
He started his first business in translation service (Hibo translation company) utilizing his major. At that time nobody think about the translation service company, but Jack found the opportunities and made success by pushing to the end, never giving up.
“I have no doubt that I can make a success if I follow the needs from the market at that time.”
His business trip to U.S in this translation company created momentum for him that he got introduced to the Internet, and he grabbed the opportunity.
And his second business could be started which was for company promotion service in Internet (creating websites, China Yellow Pages). At the first time, he overcome all the obstacles and put the business on track, but the competition became so severe in China in Internet business, Jack had to step back because of the inferior technology and funding power.
Feeling deeply chagrined by this failure, he finally made a comeback with Alibaba in Feb. 1999. The business place was his house at Hangzhou at the first time.
He opened a China-based business-to-business market place site for small-medium companies based upon his calm judgment that it will be more attractive for the small-medium companies in Internet.
He was certain that “the small-medium companies are like small rocks in the desert. Those small rocks will be got together through internet, then it could be a giant to cope with big rock.”
“To develop the e-commerce market, the customer should be rich first. If they could not make money, Alibaba has no reason to exist. I hope Alibaba make all small-medium e-commerce companies in China millionaire, billionaire.”
Ma faced difficulties seriously in 2001 ever since he started Alibaba as the Internet bubble burst in 2001. At this time the objective of Alibaba was to “survive”.
Many other competitors have been trimmed out during this period, and Alibaba became to make profit as he passes through the severe difficult period.
His constant passion of entrepreneurship worked here.
“Young people have passion. But it comes quickly and disappears so quickly. But only endless and constant passion has truly values. You can fail in your project, or you can lose your customer. But you should keep what you want. Challenging again after the failure, it is the passion. So I want you to keep your passion for 3 years, and keep it throughout your life, because passion will not be hurt.”
He said that he has read many novels written by Jin Yong (Louis Cha Leung-yung), a Chinese novelist of martial arts and chivalry, and these tacit fantasy creativity in the story has inspired his entrepreneurship.
Alibaba could become one of the most valuable tech companies in e-commerce as Jack grasped the opportunity of Internet tool with creative imaginative power, and run without giving up. The person who could not grasp the opportunity when they see the chance, they just miss those lucks and chances.
When people see no future in the e-commerce, but Jack took it as a big luck for him at the pioneer days. “It was another luck people saw no future in the e-commerce at that time. I could not have my turn at all, if people had stuck to e-commerce business.” So I can say that it was luck for Jack.
And the success factor was his intention to make his customer succeed first.
With mission, “no difficult transaction in the world”, he adhered to the principle to provide service at free of charges for all Alibaba customers of small-medium companies.
He has unique values for the people, “core leaders should consider how they can get right people, how they can provide the best benefits and supports. Because people create values and people are the most valuable assets to the Company”
So the success factors of MA are as summarized as below.
‘grasped the business opportunity at the right time,
run with passion without giving up,
put the customer first and put customer's benefit at the first priority
valued people and employee loyalty has kept high'
And now
Alibaba became the world biggest e-commerce company of 280 million monthly users, 23,000 employees, KRW26 trillion asset size and revenue size much higher than those of ebay plus amazon.
And it is expected that he will achieve more than he has ever achieved, and that is why we are watching and try to learn from him.
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